I was begin­ning to won­der if this was maybe what strength was all about: not being the first, or the tallest, or the pret­ti­est. Being strong, I decid­ed, was about catch­ing the bright things that blow by every day, and know­ing when to let the garbage drift away.

– Lau­ren Kir­sh­n­er, Where We Have to Go 

 

The paint­ing is a con­tin­u­a­tion of the mask­ing exper­i­ments I post­ed yes­ter­day. I cut sten­cils from foam pieces to masked shapes and then stip­pled paint on the canvas.

I recent­ly read Where We Have to Go and it has become one of my favourites. I thought the quote goes well with the paint­ing. I liked the book not only because of the way it’s writ­ten (and it’s set in Toron­to!), but most impor­tant­ly it’s because it reminds me so much of my own ado­les­cence. I felt very much con­nect­ed to the way the pro­tag­o­nist is think­ing and feeling.

So, about catch­ing the bright things. Much of Cana­da is cov­ered in, as the news reports call it, an “oppres­sive heat blan­ket” these days. I keep wait­ing for an epic thun­der­storm to lift this blan­ket of heat and haze and smog, and I’m still wait­ing :( Though this aggres­sive weath­er sys­tem has brought with it some incred­i­ble sun­sets. Look how red the sky is!

 

Ris­ing tem­per­a­ture in the apart­ment also makes cold water­mel­on so much more enjoy­able. I’m con­vinced that scoop­ing with an ice cream scoop is the most effi­cient way to eat water­mel­on. Unlike chop­ping the mel­on on a chop­ping board, how the juice splat­ters every­where with each chop, when scoop­ing out the flesh all the juice would be saved in the rind like a bowl, not one drop would be wast­ed. See?

 

Have a bright and beau­ti­ful Tuesday!